Tag: Disability Pride

Dad Gives Me the Gold * Storytelling Audio + Text

I performed this story at Turn Me into Gold: A Storytelling Party in the beautiful St. Joseph’s Arts Society in San Francisco. It was a wonderful night with so many old and dear friends in the audience. Wish my dad could have been there. But then it would have been a different story… Dad Gives Me the Gold   It’s… Read more

My Portrait—Graffitied By Me—Hanging Out with the Mayor in City Hall

Almost ten years ago, I was invited to the SoHo studio of artist Roy Nachum. He had me choose colors and paint my portrait on a big piece of paper on the wall.. It basically consisted of long stripes of hair and round sunglasses. I think I chose silver and black. I was wearing gold and black and purple. He… Read more

#HappyBirthdayHelenKeller and Hello #DisabilityPrideMonth!

About 15 years ago I first learned that Helen Keller performed in vaudeville. As I discuss in There Plant Eyes, I was moonlighting as a performance artist with the Art Stars of the Lower East Side when I stumbled upon the delicious fact that Helen and Annie did the vaudeville circuit for 4 years (1920-24), I instantly knew it would… Read more

Perceived: Disrupting The Blind Stereotype * Radio Interview Embodied (WUNC)

I was delighted to join fellow blind culture creators, Lachi and James Tate Hill, for an important, fun, sexy, and a little bit punk discussion of how to have blind pride in an ocularcentric world. As writers and artists we need to think less about inclusion and more about shifting culture in our direction. I’m tired of saying: “Let me… Read more

“She Doesn’t Look Blind to Me” The Blind Actor Phenomenon, #52essays2017

In my last essay inspired by attending the NYC Disability Pride Parade, I presented a small rant on the dearth of actors with disabilities representing themselves on television. And I got to thinking about how, in a troubling landscape, I can say with as few sour grapes as possible, that the blind actor is pretty much non-existent, excepting of course… Read more